Impact:  It is upsetting learning about these things because, yes, it feels as though I have been lied to. It is also extremely insulting to think the leadership was trying to “protect us” from the truth because they seemed to believe we couldn’t handle the facts. The history doesn’t bother me nearly as much as this “we know what’s best for you to know” attitude that feels so pervasive now. It now seems much of what I was told was anti-mormon propaganda wasn’t a pack of lies as I was told growing up, but rather it was more a pack of inconvenient truths.

For me, if they would just own up to being wrong where they were wrong (E. G. Blacks and the priesthood) it would lend a whole lot more credibility to the organization than these we-weren’t-wrong-really-you-just-don’t-understand explanations they like to throw out there. It’s like they want to show us they are trying to make progress, but only just enough so that we’ll see it, acknowledge it, tell them to keep up the good work, and then they can go back to the status quo because, after all, they did make an effort. 

I guess what I’m trying to say here is that if my kids had been telling fits or not the whole truth the same way the church has, I would sit down and talk to them about why it is important to be honest and then ground them from electronics and video games for a week so they’d learn that actions have consequences. If they persisted in insisting that hadn’t done anything wrong, then it would be 2 weeks, because that is unacceptable behavior and if it continues unchecked and my kids think that’s how you are supposed to operate in the world then they would be on track to become the next Mark Shurtleff. I don’t want that to happen. That guy is the worst.

Name: Spence

Date: 16 Jul 2014

Impact Topic: Cover up and Excommunications